HP Victus 15 review: As cheap as gaming laptops come

Like the Victus 16, the Victus 15 has a design that carries over a few elements from HP’s Omen lineup but maintains a more conservative aesthetic. The Victus logo shares the Omen logo’s basic geometry, cutting off and retaining the bottom portion. The logo shows up on the lid and in the venting above the keyboard. Otherwise, the Victus 15 has simple lines and few gamer-oriented elements. The rear vent has a bit of a fighter jet look, but from the front and sides, you wouldn’t be blamed for mistaking the Victus 15 for a mainstream budget laptop. That perception extends to the thin side bezels and reasonably small top bezel that contrast with the massive chin at the bottom of the display.

Affordable gaming laptops are tough to come by these days, especially ones that are actually worth buying. As with all cheap laptops, though, digging into the configurations is key — and unfortunately, HP has created a confusing lineup with the Victus 15, offering preconfigured models via retailers that utilize different Intel CPUs than you can buy via HP’s configure-to-order (CTO) system.

The preconfigured models range from a $600 (on sale from $880) configuration with an AMD Ryzen 5 5600H CPU, 8GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD, and an Nvidia GTX 1650. My review unit was similar, though it cost $800 and includes a Core i5-12450H and a 144Hz Full HD display. At the high end is the $1,000 (on sale from $1,100) model with a Core i7-12650H, 16GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD, and the Nvidia RTX 3050 Ti. Other options include the AMD Ryzen 7 5800H and the RTX 3050. These higher-end options will give you far better performance.

You can configure the Victus 15 at HP.com, which lets you spec out your laptop in finer detail, ranging from $870 on the low end to $1,230 on the high end. There are two primary competitors that price out closely to the Victus 15: The Lenovo IdeaPad Gaming 3 and the Acer Nitro 5. The Nitro 5 is $50 more expensive when configured similarly, while the IdeaPad Gaming 3 comes with the latest Ryzen processor for $900.

Gaming performance was mostly in line with expectations given the GTX 1650 GPU. These are the lowest-end graphics cards you can find in a gaming laptop, so your expectations should be low when firing this up. First, the Victus 15 had the lowest 3DMark Time Spy test in our comparison group, as expected. It was considerably lower than the MSI Prestige 14’s RTX 3050, also as expected.

The Victus 15 performance OK in most of our benchmarks at 1080p and higher graphics settings. It managed playable frame rates in Civilization VI and Fortnite, but just barely in the latter case. You’ll need to drop down to a lower setting to play Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. The results aren’t listed in the table below, but the Victus 15 managed to hit 45 frames per second (fps) in Cyberpunk 2077 at 1080p and Ultra graphics with DLSS turned off.

Overall, the laptop averaged greater than 30 fps in most of our benchmark titles. Of course, that’s the bare minimum fps for gaming, so you’ll want to configure the RTX 3050 Ti to get more comfortable frame rates at higher graphics.

There are three display options for the Victus 15, all non-touch 16:9 Full HD (1,920 x 1,080) IPS. They include a 250-nit 60Hz panel, a 250-nit 144Hz panel, and a 300-nit low blue light panel. My review unit was equipped with the 144Hz display, and it seemed OK to me when I powered on the laptop and used it during my testing. The colors were muted, but the contrast seemed deep enough, and the display didn’t get terribly bright.

There’s no per-key RGB lighting with the Victus 15, as HP is apparently reserving that for its Omen gaming lineup. Instead, there’s just a single, rather bright backlight setting. There’s plenty of spacing, and the keys with their gamer-oriented font are large enough. I found the switches to be ligh, with a nice click at the bottom, which should work nicely for gamers even if it’s not a mechanical keyboard. Overall, the keyboard felt much like the one on the Victus 16, which shouldn’t be a surprise.

The touchpad was large and had a surface that offered a touch of resistance. It was responsive and reliable for Windows 11’s complement of multi-touch gestures, and the clicks were solid and confident without being too loud.

The webcam is a 720p version, and it performed about as well as the typical laptop webcam. That is, it was OK with good lighting but lost details in low light.

The Victus 15 doesn’t support Windows 11 Hello passwordless login. There are no fingerprint reader or infrared camera options, which is disappointing.

My review unit packed in just 52.5 watt-hours of battery, which isn’t a lot for a 15-inch laptop with a discrete GPU. If you order a higher-end model via HP’s CTO system, you can get a 70 watt-hour battery. I wasn’t expecting much in the way of battery life.

Unsurprisingly, the Victus 15 didn’t do well. It managed just 4.25 hours in our web-browsing test that cycles through a series of popular and demanding websites, and it only managed five hours in our video test that loops a local Full HD Avengers trailer. In the PCMark 10 Applications test that’s the best measure of productivity battery life, it couldn’t quite make it to five hours. The average laptop in our database at least doubles those results.

Rating the HP Victus 15 is challenging given its wide range of configurations. The $600 configuration (on sale from $870) with an AMD Ryzen 5 5600H and a GTX 1650 provides a lot of value and will likely provide similar performance to my review unit. Speaking of that, the configuration I reviewed justifies its $800 price, but barely.

In the end, the Victus 15 performed well enough and is built solidly enough to make it a solid new entry in the budget gaming arena. You’ll just want to compare the available options before making your choice.

Are there any alternatives?

The best alternative to the Victus 15 is the Victus 16. It’s a little larger, but it can also be configured with a much faster GPU, and its display is slightly better. For just $100 more, you can get a configuration with an AMD Ryzen 5 6600H and RTX 3050 that’s probably faster than my review unit.

There aren’t many other gaming laptops under $1,000 that have made the switch to Intel 12th-gen CPUs. One that has is the Acer Nitro 5, which has a more aggressive gaming design and similar configuration for a couple of hundred dollars more.

The Lenovo IdeaPad Gaming 3 is another alternative, offering a similarly conservative design and similar components for just a bit more money than the Victus 15. You’ll want to look for the newest AMD Ryzen 6000 models.

How long will it last?

Despite a little bending in the lid and flexing in the keyboard deck, the Victus 15 is a well-built budget gaming machine. It should still last for years of hard gaming. The one-year warranty remains as disappointing as ever.

Should you buy it?

Yes. The Victus 15 is a good value as long as you make your selection carefully from among HP’s confusing purchasing options.

Editors’ Recommendations